(Living Through the Polycrisis — Part One)

You’re not imagining it. Something fundamental really is breaking down. And if you’ve been sensing that—feeling it in your body, your conversations, your sleep, your worry for the kids and the future—you’re not weak, pessimistic, or “too negative.” You’re paying attention.

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard the terms metacrisis or polycrisis. It was probably sometime shortly after I began writing One Cause: Breaking Free from the Four Great Untruths—and Embracing the Truths That Will Shape Our Future. That would put it at about a year ago. At the time, they felt like big, academic words—useful, perhaps, but abstract. What changed wasn’t the vocabulary. It was the realization that the climate crisis, as urgent and terrifying as it is, is only the tip of a much larger iceberg.

An important tip. A sharp one. A deadly one. But still not the whole thing.

As I dug deeper—reading, listening, following the threads—the picture widened. Climate collapse is intertwined with biodiversity loss, food and water instability, economic fragility, political polarization, authoritarian drift, technological disruption, and a deep spiritual and cultural exhaustion. These aren’t separate problems stacking up neatly on top of one another. They are interconnected systems unraveling together, amplifying each other, cascading in ways that are hard to predict and even harder to control.

That’s what people mean when they talk about the polycrisis.

The term points to a system-of-systems failure—a convergence of crises so entangled that you can’t fix one without triggering consequences in another. And that, I think, explains why so many people today feel overwhelmed, anxious, numb, frozen, or strangely detached. It’s not because they don’t care. It’s because their nervous systems are trying to process something that doesn’t fit into the tidy problem-solution stories we were taught to expect.

Some people are just now beginning to sense this. Others have known it for years. And many—good, thoughtful people—are choosing, consciously or unconsciously, not to look too closely at all. It feels too confronting. Too destabilizing. Too much. So they freeze, like a deer in the headlights, hoping that if they don’t move, the danger might pass.

I understand that response. I’ve felt it myself.

If you know others who are feeling similarly disoriented, why not share today’s article?

A turning point for me came when a good friend introduced me to Sarah Wilson’s TED Talk, How to Respond to Societal Collapse. Watching it was unsettling—and oddly relieving at the same time. Wilson doesn’t sugarcoat what we’re facing. She lays it out plainly: climate deadlines missed, planetary boundaries breached, AI accelerating toward unknown thresholds, nuclear risk intensifying, democracies eroding, authoritarianism rising. Not as isolated headlines, but as a single, tangled reality.

What struck me most wasn’t just her analysis. It was her honesty about the emotional terrain. She named something I had been feeling but hadn’t fully articulated: that the deepest distress many of us are experiencing doesn’t come from the bad news itself. It comes from the disconnect between what we sense is true and what we’re allowed—or encouraged—to say out loud.

In psychology, that disconnect is called cognitive dissonance. Living in a world that insists everything is basically fine while your gut tells you it’s not creates anxiety, loneliness, and a quiet despair that’s hard to name. But Wilson points to something counterintuitive and deeply important: facing the truth, even when it’s brutal, often brings relief. A strange, grounded relief. A sense of congruence. Of finally being able to breathe honestly.

This insight aligns powerfully with the core of One Cause.

Let’s band together and move through the polycrisis with grace. Subscribe today.

The polycrisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It is the inevitable result of what I’ve come to call the Four Great Untruths—the deep assumptions that have shaped modern culture and driven us to this edge. The belief that we are separate from nature. The belief that more is always better. The belief that Earth’s resources are effectively infinite. And the belief that technology will ultimately save us from the consequences of our own behavior.

When these untruths become normalized—woven into our economics, politics, education, and daily habits—they produce exactly the kind of world we’re now living in. A world that is impressively complex, incredibly productive, and profoundly fragile. A world that runs fast, extracts relentlessly, and leaves very little room for pause, presence, or wisdom.

No wonder so many people feel exhausted and disoriented. No wonder anxiety and burnout are everywhere. Our inner lives are struggling to keep up with a system that no longer makes sense, even on its own terms.

And here’s the paradox that keeps revealing itself to me: naming this reality doesn’t have to lead to despair. In fact, for many of us, it does the opposite. It breaks the spell. It releases us from the exhausting effort of pretending everything is fine. It opens the door to a more honest set of questions.

Not, “How do we fix everything?” But, “How do we live well in the truth of where we are?” I invite you to explore this question with me. Join the chat below.

That question—quiet, unsettling, and strangely hopeful—is what this three-part series will explore. Not as a manifesto. Not as a doomsday chronicle. But as a grounded reflection on what it means to meet this moment with clarity, courage, and care.

In the next piece, we’ll turn toward the Four Great Truths—not as abstract ideals, but as a lived orientation. A way of grounding ourselves, our families, and our communities in something sturdier than denial or panic. And in the final piece, we’ll look at what this moment asks of us across generations—especially in how we love, guide, and show up for the young ones who are already sensing that the world they’re inheriting will be very different from the one we were promised.

For now, let this be enough: you’re not imagining it. You’re not broken for feeling it. And you’re not alone in asking what comes next.

Sometimes, the most hopeful thing we can do is tell the truth—and stay present long enough to see what grows from there.

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